Red vs Blue: The Gensokyo Chronicles
by TK3997
Summary: Sense: expect little. There is really no rational explanation for this fic beyond sheer boredom and possible humor value.
1. New Location, Same Old Bull

Props to manonthe3up for inspiring this. (I originally was considering a TF cross, but this works better IMO) Setting is post Season 5 for RvB assuming the "everything goes back to normal ending" and ignoring reconstruction more or less. (So don't tell me about how Church is really an AI and shit.) I really have no plan beyond "hey that could be funny!" so if you have ideas (on the off chance anyone reads this crap) feel free to toss them out.

* * *

Chapter 1: New Location, Same old bullshit…

* * *

"Alright men now I'm sure you're all wondering what I called you here for!" Sarge announced jubilantly to his team who he'd had assembled atop their base.

"Not really, can I go back to bed?" Grif replied bored already.

"Denied!" Sarge shot back. "You have an important role to play in these preceding!"

"Why do I get the feeling of impending doom, does anyone else feel impending doom?" Grif questioned wearily.

"Of course you feel impending doom. He's going to test it on you." Simmons replied dismissively, it being the ramshackle device before them. "So umm what exactly is it sir?" He asked looking over at the machine which appeared to have been crudely cobbled together mostly from the remains of several destroyed Warthogs among other miscellaneous trash lying around the base.

"I'm glad you asked Simmons! This is what is going to win us the war!" Sarge crowed confidently.

"Oh yeah cause I've never heard that before." Grif noted sarcastically.

"That's great sir, but you still haven't' said what it_ is_?" Simmons's noted impatiently.

"Ah yes well quite simply its matter translocation device!" He announced proudly.

"So it's teleporter?" Donut asked mildly confused.

"Well I suppose that would be what a laymen might call it." Sarge conceded grudgingly.

"Didn't we have one of those, and aren't we still 'fighting'?" Grif noted pointedly.

"This one's different!" Sarge responded proudly patting the side of the contraption.

"Yeah you built it, so instead of just turning us black and horribly burning us while going nowhere useful it'll probably scatter our dismembered body parts all over this damned canyon." Grif shot back sarcastically.

"We can only hope since you'll be the first to test it!" He informed him enthusiastically.

"Can't we just like send some rocks through it something?" Grif countered miserably.

"We need to ascertain its effect on living matter first!" Sarge responded as if this should be patently obvious.

"Actually shouldn't we see what it does to inani- You know what? Why even waste my breath." He sighed in defeat.

"Good to see you're ready to do something useful to the team for once!" Sarge noted approvingly. "Now let's fire this bad boy up! Lopez!"

[I've been telling you for the last three days this device is unstable.]

"Enough chit-chat Lopez! We can discuss improvements later!"

[Activating this could result in disaster.]

"Losing Grif is hardly a major set back." Sarge replied dismissively.

[The death of the lazy orange idiot is the least of the possible catastrophic outcomes.]

"Don't make me break out my overrides." Sarge was growing increasingly grumpy at the delay.

[Fine, kill yourself; I shall enjoy your last agonizing moments before I embrace sweet oblivion.]

The recently rebuilt robot turned back to the controls and reluctantly twisted several knobs and flicked several switches. At first nothing seemed to be happening much to Sarge's growing irritation and the rest of the team's relief. Finally after about a minute he approached the device and used his trusty shotgun to deliver a smash to the side of the machine. The entire device suddenly buzzed to life with a loud and growing hum. It vibrated furiously and electricity could be seen arcing between several components.

"You're sure this is safe?" Simmons asked more than a little concerned as the noise increased and several loud bangs sounded in rapid succession as other parts of the machine began venting steam.

"Absolutely! Well for us anyway…" Sarge reassured him when suddenly a much louder bang was heard and fire could suddenly be seen on part of the machine.

"Is it supposed to burn like that?!" Simmons asked panicked.

"Not that specific part of it no." Sarge himself remained largely unfazed.

"Is it supposed to glow ominously like that?!" Grif asked as an increasingly intense white glow began to spill from various seams in the machine.

"I don't recall that being in the plans…" Sarge replied thoughtfully.

"Sarge, permission to run around and scream like a little girl?" Donut asked as the device continued to belch, smoke, and shine with increasing intensity apparently in some sort of runaway state.

"Granted!"

"Aiiiieeee---"

Suddenly the machine imploded and everything went white.

* * *

"Hey we're not dead!" Donut announced happily as the light suddenly vanished. The machine was smoldering ruin, but other then that everything and everyone seemed intact and undamaged.

"Wow a failed invention that only destroyed _itself_, that's a nice change of pace." Grif noted appreciatively.

"All that planning and work! Gone in a flash and it didn't even take Grif with it!" Sarge moaned in despair at the loss of his device.

[What planning and work? You just ordered _me _to build it based on a set of half finished blue prints.] Lopez was less then impressed with this remark.

"Well don't worry sir I'm sure you'll think of other ways to ridiculously endanger my life soon enough." Grif's consolation was less then sincere.

"Oh you're just saying that…" He mumbled morosely.

"Umm guys, do any of you remember that mountain being there a minute ago?" Simmons suddenly cut in drawing the group's attention skyward.

Sure enough looming some distance outside the confines of the familiar box canyon stood a snow capped mountain. That in itself might not be so odd aside from the fact it simply had not been present mere minutes before. This sudden revelation silenced the group as they all paused to ponder its implications.

"Well there's only one thing to do!" Sarge announced boldly after a few moments thought.

* * *

"This sucks!" Grif shouted irritably.

"Shut up and climb faster slacker! That rope won't get itself to the top of the canyon you know!" Sarge shouted back at his subordinate as he tried to pick his way up the towering cliff face dragging a rope.

"Shouldn't I have like a safety line when rock climbing or something?!" Grif protested pitifully as he clung precariously from the near vertical rock face.

"Nonsense how can we have a safety rope without someone climbing up first!" Sarge scoffed.

"Actually Sir there are ways to do it as you clim—" Donut began informatively.

"Shut up Donut I don't want to be distracted when he falls to his death." Sarge cut him off uninterested as he watched his progress with a sniper rifle.

"Why would you know about rock climbing anyway?" Simmons asked Donut curious.

"Oh well I don't really, but I do know something about rope and knots!" He replied cheerfully.

"You know what forget I asked." Simmons shuddered.

"Damn it why isn't he plummeting to his doom?!" Sarge was growing increasingly annoyed as Grif neared the top of the cliff and had yet to fall to a gruesome death.

"Well Grif can be surprisingly capable when faced with the prospect of certain death as his only alternative." Simmons noted.

"Damn he got to the top." Sarge noted disappointed.

"Haha! Whose the man?" Grif boasted triumphantly from the top feeling more then a bit full of himself.

_*POW*_

"Oww! What the hell!?" He shouted as a bullet bounced off his shields.

"Finger Slipped!" Sarge shouted back.

_*POW* _

"Slipped again!"

"Stop trying to kill me asshole!" Grif cursed ducking back behind the edge of the cliff.

"Sir, I know how much you like shooting Grif, and believe me we all enjoy it, but maybe we should get on with our mission?" Simmons suggested as inoffensively as possible.

"Well I suppose you have a point Simmons." He agreed grudgingly. "Besides I can't get a clear shot at him now anyway." He added off hand as he lowered his rifle.

It didn't take the rest of the team too long to ascend the cliff with the aid of the rope Grif had laid for them and they soon gathered around at the top. They found the terrain clear along the rim of the canyon, but it quickly turned into a thick temperate forest about a hundred meters from the edge. This impenetrable wall of trees prevented any real information from being gleaned about the surrounding area. It was painfully obvious that if they wanted to find anything out they'd have to enter the woods…

"Now remember men this is unexplored territory discovered following a bizarre and improbable accident! As such these woods could be crawling with all manner of monstrous killing machines with a taste for human flesh!" Sarge announced with little idea how accurate that assessment actually was despite its insanity.

"You know what suddenly spending the rest of my life in that box canyon doesn't seem so bad, why don't we just forget about this and head on back…" Grif suggested turning back toward the rope.

"No chance buttercup!" Sarge stopped him in his tracks. "Along with the killing machines there's a high chance of there being unknown alien artifacts of great power, if the blues get there hands on them they could alter the whole balance of power! Grif you take point, if anything jumps on you just scream and we'll come running as quickly as possible to kill it once it's finished horribly mauling you."

Knowing arguing was completely futile Grif merely wearily moved to the head of the group as they entered the woods. Despite Sarge's hopes, and Grif's fears, their trip into the woods was fairly uneventful as they more or less just muddled around aimlessly. When questioned as to what exactly they where looking for Sarge was vague at best and most of the team had a sneaking feeling his directions were leading them circles. Soon apprehension gave way to boredom.

"This is bringing back bad memories of summer camp." Grif grumbled as he trudged along a path that hardly deserved the name.

"Oh I loved camp! It was like a sleep over with all my buddies every night!" Donut piped in happily.

"Yeah you would like someplace where you got to see lots of half naked boys on a regular basis and do arts and crafts…" Grif mumbled.

"You saying something?" Donut questioned suspiciously.

"Nothing, nothing." He coughed as if clearing his throat and quickly turned his attention elsewhere when something caught his eye. "Hey did you see that!" Grif suddenly paused and pointed ahead drawing the group's attention toward the area he thought he'd spotted something. Instantly the better part of a half dozen weapons were drawn and trained on the spot. The men watched the undergrowth intently in the dimming afternoon light fingers anxiously flirting with the triggers of their weapons.

"There!" Sarge suddenly shouted and began blasting away with his shotgun shredding branches from trees and ruining the atmosphere of the once tranquil woods.

"Where is it? I don't see it?!" Simmons frantically scanned the woods trying to find what Sarge was shooting at.

"Who cares start shooting!" Grif shouted back determined that he wasn't getting_ his_ face eaten by some alien freak today. He and Simmons began spraying their rifles wildly into the trees adding a stream of tracers to the torrent of buckshot.

"Aiiieee!" Donut wailed as he assumed his designated position screaming like a girl and panicking in the face of the unseen enemy.

Assuming they must have seen _something_ Lopez strode forward from the rear of the group and let loose with his flamethrower hosing down the woods with napalm. It a matter of moments the once peaceful serenity of nature was reduced a blazing bullet riddled hell. Finally after nearly a minute the flamethrower ran dry just as the rest of the team expended the last of their ammunition and the barrage petered out.

"Did we kill it? What was it anyway?" Grif questioned still scanning the burning woods for movement.

[I did not see the target either.] Lopez chimed in.

"Well I'm pretty sure I thought I saw _something_." Sarge announced seemingly quite satisfied with the devastation before him.

"You _thought_ you saw something?! We torched half an acre because you_ thought_ you saw something!?" Simmons replied incredulously.

"When dealing with the unknown it's better safe then sorry!" Sarge replied sagely.

"You don't even know for sure that anything was there!" Simmons protested.

"Not knowing if something unknown is around is an unknown in and of itself!" His logic as always was flawless.

[You're stupidity continues to astound me even after so long...] Lopez announced with contempt.

"Umm guys maybe we should get out of here. The fire seems to be spreading…" Donut noted worriedly.

Indeed a quick glance showed the flames had taken hold in the treetops and the fire was continuing to intensify and spread on its own. Without any further promoting or a second thought they quickly fled the scene leaving the fire they'd started to continue spreading out of control. Pointlessly torching a few acres of woodland was hardly even near the top of the list of wicked deeds they'd committed and totally failed to take any responsibility for after all.

Unbeknownst to them as they fled the scene Sarge HAD actually seen something. That something was now staggering away from the spreading flames singed and bruised, but somehow miraculously free of bullet holes. "I… I just wanted to surprise them…" She whimpered pitifully with tears in her eyes.

* * *

Red Base Sometime Later

* * *

"Alright men, first off I just wanted to congratulate you all on that excellent mission." Sarge began in all seriousness.

"What was excellent about it?! We just bumbled around the woods for an hour and then murdered some trees! Then we got lost and it took six hours to get back!" Grif responded incredulous.

"Funny you should mention that second bit I have some notes on that! Now while I really liked how we were all firing indiscriminately and randomly at the slightest sign of movement once we got going I think we can do better. In the future I'd like to see quicker reactions and hair triggers. Remember to shoot first and ask questions later at all times!"

"Noted sir, we'll start shooting sooner and with less verification in the future!" Simmons replied quickly.

"That's the spirit! Now I also have some more specific problems let's start with Grif why didn't you take your assigned position?"

"You mean why didn't I run out in front of us to draw enemy fire?" He replied flatly.

"So you knew what your job was and still failed! Show some initiative!" Sarge admonished, but hardly expected better from him.

Grif merely sighed wearily at this.

"Simmons, you should have been closer to me, and ready to leap in front of any return fire that got past Grif to valiantly save your leaders life!"

"Sorry sir I umm didn't want to block your line of fire sir." His reply this time was less then sincere.

"It's an important job so see that it doesn't happen again!" He noted gruffly before moving on. "Donut, I could barely hear your girlish squeals over the storm of gunfire! Your effeminate wailing can't distract the enemy if he can't hear it so speak up!"

"Sorry sir I forgot my throat lozenges and I was just too parched to hit my normal volume!" He apologized earnestly.

"Making sure you have all your equipment is vital!" He noted sternly. "Lopez, flamethrower fuel is expensive so when incinerating random tracts of terrain in the future fire in short controlled bursts! Let the secondary fires do the work of destroying property for you!"

"Usted es insano."

"Glad we agree!" He nodded approvingly. "Now I know it may seem like I'm being hard on you, but that's because it's going to take everything we've got to survive in this strange new land, but follow my lead and we'll be fine!"

"God we're so boned…" Grif noted bleakly.

* * *

Elsewhere…

* * *

"Hey, hey did you hear?!"

"Hear about what?"

"There was an incident!"


	2. The Other Half

Oh yeah since I forgot before I suppose I should note I don't acutally own any of this crap, big shocker right? While the owners are welcome to sue me I don't acutally have any money so it's pretty much a dry hole...Shockingly it seems some people acutally read this and bothered to comment!

manonthe3up: I thought yours was a decent start if a bit short. I have been watching Red vs Blue since like ep 5 so I like to think I'm pretty familiar with the characters by now, good to see someone else agreed. Anyway it never hurts to have different takes on the same idea and I hope you continue your work as well.

Heraklinios: You're giving me way to much credit here. Really don't inflate my ego please it could get ugly. :p And of course both teams have to show up since Church is probably my fav character in the show there no way the blues won't be appearing in fact look here they are right now!

* * *

**The Other Half**

* * *

Though having no idea what the hell had happened the Blues aside from there being a blinding white flash still took notice the odd landscape just as quickly as the Reds. Things somewhat derailed when it came time to decided what to do about this turn of events though.

"Oh a new mountain," Tucker shrugged indifferently. "Who cares, can we just get back to slacking off now?"

"So you're not at all concerned about the fact a blinding white flash enveloped us and now the landscape is suddenly different?" Church questioned pointedly.

"Dude when has anything _good_ ever come out of us deciding to explore odd things happening outside this canyon? All that ever happens is I get beat up, or knocked out, or impregnated by weird aliens." Tucker responded unmoved.

Church was silent for a moment seemingly attempting to formulate a logical counter argument. "Well tough shit we're going out end of story." He failed, but that was a minor setback.

"Oh, oh are we going on a field trip?" Caboose asked excitedly.

"Well it's really more of a recon miss--" Church began and then paused and reconsidered. "Actually yes, we're going on a field trip Caboose."

"I love field trips I'll go pack my lunch!" He replied happily and scurried off into the base.

"Hey pack your gun too!" Church yelled after him, but quickly made a mental note to make sure he actually had a working weapon before they left.

"Alright then glorious leader how exactly are you planning to mount this doomed expedition anyway? In case you haven't noticed we're surrounded by sheer rock walls on all sides." Tucker queried snidely.

"Why I'm glad you asked that Tucker." Church replied ominously.

* * *

"Chuuuuurch!" Tucker yelled angrily.

"What?" Church shouted back grumpily.

"You're a Dooouche" Tucker yelled bitterly as he clumsily ascended the rock face, nearly losing it as one foot slipped off, but scrambling he managed to find a new foothold in time.

"Yeah, yeah," Church replied completely unmoved. "Just climb faster!"

"Umm once again I feel the need to express my opinion that this is not safe." Doc noted meekly as he watched Tucker bumbling ascend the cliff face.

"Hey we have you here in case he falls right?" Church noted dismissively.

"Well yes, but still part of a medic's job is to prevent injuries by stopping unsafe activities." He protested rather lamely.

"Listen Doc what was the deal we made to let you hang out at our base?" Church responded irritably.

"That I'd be your personal bitch and not talk back?" He replied weakly.

"And what are you doing now?" Church guided him along.

"Talking back?" He sighed defeated.

"Do you see the problem here?"

"Sorry..."

Suddenly though the men's attention was drawn upward by a muffled curse from the cliff face accompanied by the sound of falling rocks. This was in turn quickly followed by a scream of terror and finally a sickening _**thump**_."Ooooh my spine..." Tucker moaned in pain

"Tch nice work Tucker," Church noted disapprovingly. "Alright Doc time to earn your pay." He casually motioned him forward toward Tucker's mangled body.

The medic reluctantly complied resignedly moving over to his patient to half-heartedly attend to him. Church had other more serious problems to consider though; namely they still had to get the rope up the cliff. "Hey Caboose," He turned toward the idiot standing nearby. "Wanna play a fun game?"

* * *

Quite possibly due solely to his 'tard strength Caboose somehow managed to summit the rock face on his first attempt. Sadly the team then wasted over 20 minutes trying to explain to him the process of securing the rope at the top. This ultimately proved futile and he was told to simply hold onto the rope while Tucker, newly healed, climbed it. Once at the top Tucker briefly consider sabotaging the rope as Church climbed it, but fearing retribution opted against it.

"Why the hell didn't you send Caboose up to start with!" It didn't stop him from bitching when Church got up there though.

"He can't even tie his shoes never mind a climbing rope." Church countered.

"Those laces are tricky!" Caboose noted scowling.

"Besides we had Doc standing by," Church noted dismissively. "And you're fine now so what are bitching about?"

"What if the fall had killed me instantly!?" He shot back irritably.

"Well you may not be very motivated, but one thing I've learned in our time together is that you're surprisingly hard to kill so I wasn't too worried about that." Church noted dispassionately.

"You are such an asshole." Tucker remarked bitterly.

"Yeah, yeah," Church waved it off. "Anyway let's get moving and try to figure out where the hell we are." He took the lead and motioned for the rest of them to follow which they did, some more grudgingly then others.

* * *

Whatever his failings, and they're quite numerous, as a person Church was at least noticeably more competent then the opposing commander. This was demonstrated first by the fact he had a clear objective in mind: the mountain. Since that was pretty much the biggest thing visible from their present location it seemed the logical place to start. He'd also been moving his men toward it. Well at least at first…

"Hey, has anyone seen Caboose?" He asked glancing around as they paused so he could update the map he was compiling and check his compass to try and get his bearings.

"He probably wandered off or something." Tucker shrugged indifferently.

"I told you to watch him damn it!" Church shouted exasperated.

"Man I'm not his babysitter and I only looked away for like a minute." Tucker responded uncaring.

"He has the attention span of a two year old a minute is more then enough time to kill himself!" Church responded irritably.

"If you care about him so much why didn't you watch him?" Tucker replied grumpily.

"I was on point keeping a look out and plotting our course!" He shouted back.

"Yeah great job with that by the way," Tucker noted bitingly. "Do you have any clue where we are?"

"I know exactly where we are!" He shot back without thinking. "Well I have a decent idea anyway, roughly." He faked a cough and glanced away.

"I told you coming out here was a bad idea, but noooo! No one listens to dumb old Tucker!" Tucker threw up his arms in frustration

"Oh relax, we're just a little lost it's not the end of the world," Church shushed him, "Once we get out of this… what is this shit anyway?" Church queried glancing around at the odd plants around them; he'd never encountered anything like it before.

"It's Bamboo." Doc helpfully informed them.

"Once we get of this Bamboo we can get back on course." He completed his earlier remark inserting the newfound word.

"Yeah sure we will." Tucker countered sarcastically.

"You know guys this kind of bickering is not healthily at all. I think--" Doc began carefully trying to interpose himself into the argument.

"Shut up Doc." Both Church and Tucker shut him down instantly.

"Sorry, I'll be quiet." He shuffled back into his metaphorical corner.

"Anyway first we have to find Caboose," Church announced with finality. "God only knows what sort of trouble that idiot could get into alone."

"Why don't you just call him on the radio?" Tucker suggested not seeing why this was such a big deal.

"Yeah well about that, I was worried he'd do something stupid like broadcast our position so…" Church glanced away and rubbed the back of his neck.

* * *

Nearby

* * *

"Church," Caboose called over the radio, "Church can you hear me?" He called again still getting no reply though. "Why won't this stupid thing work!" He grumbled getting frustrated with the lack of response. It wouldn't work because it was turned off, as he'd be instructed by Church to do, and subsequently quickly forgotten.

Caboose was frankly not particularly good at adapting or improvising and having failed in his attempts to call for help was more or less stymied as to what to try. He decided to just keep wandering around the forest on the off chance he'd bump back into them. It wasn't too long before he heard the sound of laughing echoing through the forest and decided to investigate.

He found the source nearby at a small pond coming from what looked like a little girl crouched near the edge of the water. Now most people alone in an unknown land confronted with the sight of an odd child by herself in the woods laughing in a somewhat creepy manner would probably run the hell away, but Caboose was not most people.

Besides she was wearing blue and in his twisted mind that was good enough to equal friendly. She seemed busy though and so not wanting to disturb her he merely silently stalked up behind her, moving closer and closer to the distracted girl until he was positively looming over her. It was only when his shadow nearly covered her that she finally took notice of his presence.

"Who are you!" She demanded as she leapt back in alarm hastily tossing away what appeared to be a frog frozen into a chunk of ice.

"I'm Caboose," He announced completely oblivious to her distress. "What's your name?"

She paused for just a moment before quickly answer. "I'm Cirno!"

"Hey wanna be friends?"

She again paused for a moment to consider, but only a moment, "'kay!" she agreed merrily.

* * *

"Brrr." Church mumbled as he suddenly shivered uncontrollably.

"What the hell was that?" Tucker questioned eying him funny.

"I don't know I just felt a chill run down my spine." Church informed him equally mystified.

"Wait, how can a chill run down your spine? You're a robot ghost you don't even have a spine!" Tucker responded incredulous.

"It's a figure of speech Tucker." Church replied irritably.

"But it makes no sense!" He continued to protest.

"Shut up Tucker," He barked grumpily. "Now come on we have to find Caboose quickly. Assuming it's not too late already…" He finished eerily.

"So what you're psychic now too?" Tucker asked mockingly.

"I said SHUT UP Tucker."

* * *

Elsewhere

* * *

"Well… that sure as hell wasn't in the briefing."

That in this case being the giant swirling spatial anomaly occupying the former location of Blood Gulch which had apparently vanished into it.


	3. Public Affairs, Red Army Style

* * *

Somewhere Else Not Long Ago

* * *

"Wait you want me to go_ into_ it?" He balked at the prospect after a quick glance back the anomaly. "What part of strange rippling hole in the fabric of reality was I unclear on?" He added bitingly.

The voice in his ear came back rambling off the usual nonsense about how vital it was they investigate quickly, could alter the course of the war, etc. He more or less tuned it out until the implied threat of imprisonment was brought up at which point he just turned off the radio. "Man, I really need to find a new job." He grumbled glancing back at the anomaly before wearily moving forward.

* * *

Red Base, Present Time

* * *

The night and most of the morning had passed uneventfully for the Reds after the debacle the day before. The blues had been quiet as well either having not noticed what had happened, which seemed highly unlikely, or more probably having opted to look into it themselves. None of this really mattered much to Grif though, what mattered to him was that Sarge had locked him self away in his workshop and assigned him to guard duty up top: alone.

He might as well have just given him a pillow and a blanket while he was at it. Grif did not disappoint and he'd wandered off to nap in the shade within minutes of being left alone atop the base, his fear of possibly being killed by an alien abomination quickly fading to be replaced by his normal laziness. Thus it was that no one was around to notice the spot in the sky above the base growing larger and large as it descended toward them.

In a place as small as Gensokyo word could travel pretty fast if the story was interesting enough to pass on. An apparently random forest fire that burned through several dozen acres counted as interesting enough to pass along the grape wine. It wasn't quite interesting enough to get more then a "oh really?" from most people though. Still a certain reported dedicated to finding the truth as a matter principle was determined to get to the bottom of it! The fact it had been one hell of a slow news week might or might not have contributed to this conviction.

Still Aya honestly wasn't expecting much beyond maybe just something she could use to pad out page three or four. This started to change after flying out to survey the scene though as she quickly took note of something possibly much more news worthy. Namely a new valley near the site of the fire that she was more or less certain had simply not been there the last time she was in this area. The sudden unexplained appearance of large terrain features overnight was unusual even for Gensokyo, and so with dreams of a huge scoop dancing in her over active imagination she moved to investigate.

As she got lower she could make out two stout grey structures at opposite ends of the canyon. A low pass over one showed it to apparently be abandoned or at least having no obvious signs of habitation. A pass over the second though revealed someone sprawled out in the shade atop it and she quickly set down on it to investigate further.

The figure she'd spotted was wearing orange or maybe it was more of a yellow? Well anyway he was wearing what appeared to be a full suit of armor which completely obscured his features. Despite that though judging by his lack of response and the snoring sounds emanating from him he was probably asleep. This sort of situation warranted caution since who knew what he could do if he woke up startled?

"Hey, wake up I want to ask you some questions!" She announced jabbing him with her foot, but this is Aya we're talking about and impatient to gain information she exercised almost none.

"I wasn't sleeping at all I was just laying down to think about stuff!" Grif declared less then convincingly as he clumsily staggered up to his feet in surprise. "Wait, who the hell are you?" His mood shifted in an instant when he came to enough to recognize that the person that had roused him was not one of his superiors, or indeed anyone he knew.

"Aya Shameimaru." She announced as if that ought to explain everything.

Grif was silent for a moment and simply stared at her. "Yeah that doesn't really answer the real point of the question at all." He responded bluntly. "Also what's with the wings is that some kind of stupid new fashion trend?"

"These are my wings." She informed him casually.

"Well obviously since you're wearing them." He replied condescendingly.

"I'm not wearing them; they're mine as in part of my body." She corrected him a tad annoyed.

He looked at her confused for a moment and then without a second thought just reached and grabbed hold of one of them and yanked on it. This quickly earned him a smack to the side of the head which frankly ended up hurting her hand more then it did his head given his bullet proof helmet and all.

"Oh okay you're an alien then." He made this insane pronouncement with complete nonchalance.

"No I'm a Tengu." She corrected him again.

"Okay your species is called Tengu, got it." Grif replied confidently.

"No that's not it, well it is, but not like your thinking!" She hastily tried to correct him once more, but before this could continue they were interrupted.

"Grif who the hell are you talking to!" Simmons demanded as he arrived up top to see what was going on.

"Oh just this alien chick." Grif responded casually as he turned to face him.

"You supposed to be on guard duty!" Simmons groused infuriated.

"Hey I didn't let her inside or anything." He countered grumpily.

"You also didn't bother to mention to us that someone totally unknown had showed up and just started chatting instead!" Simmons shot back irritably.

"Man nothing is ever good enough for you is it?" He whined.

"What the hell is going on up here!" Now it was Sarge's turn to emerge and interrupt the conversation Donut was close in tow behind him, but remained silent for the moment.

"Grif was just chatting with an alien intruder." Simmons informed him rolling his eyes, which would have worked better without a polarized face plate, but you get the point.

"Wait he actually stopped her from getting inside?!" Sarge remarked genuinely surprised. "I have to admit that's more then I expected out of a useless slacker like you!" That was as close as he came to praise with regards to Grif.

"Well at least someone appreciates my work." Grif noted satisfied as Simmons's eyes valiantly attempted to execute a 360 roll.

"Enough chit-chat! Now stand back men I have experience dealing with aliens!" Sarge pronounced shooing Grif and Simmons off to the side and stepping to the fore.

"Does murdering something count as having experience with it?" Grif questioned rhetorically.

"Shut up Grif." Simmons was not in the mood for his crap at the moment.

"Alright then alien fiend what are you terms of surrender so we can reject them, kill you, and then start a war of annihilation against your race?" Sarge's thinking was as warped as ever.

"I'm not an alien, and I just wanted to ask you some questions for my newspaper—" She tried to explain wearily.

"Alien reporters?! It's even worse then I feared!" Sarge cut her off with a surprised squawk as his demeanor suddenly shifted in an instant and he quickly cocked and locked his shotgun taking aim at Aya.

"Wow, wow!" Simmons quickly intervened to try and prevent a homicide.

"Step aside Simmons I know how to deal with _her kind_!" Sarge barked gruffly.

"Sir while I greatly respect your experience I'm not sure your background in beating and shooting the press and aliens then calling them hippies is the exact _kind_ of experience we need in this particular case." Simmons pleaded gently.

"Well what other way is there for dealing with vultures like her?" Sarge asked confused.

"I'm actually a crow." Aya noted from off behind them.

"You're still an unethical carrion eater either way." Sarge countered keeping the shotgun on her.

"I'll have you know I cook all my food." She replied indignantly.

"Umm aren't you going to say something about the unethical bit?" Grif questioned rhetorically.

"Listen sir why don't you just let me deal with her," Simmons suggested quickly hoping to avoid an interplanetary incident. "Since I know you're very busy and have better things you could be doing then dealing with the like her, just leave it to me I'll _deal _with her." He added laying it on thick.

"Well I do have things I could be doing," Sarge paused to consider for a moment. "Alright I'll leave this in your hands Simmons, but don't disappoint me!" Sarge finally agreed issuing a stern warning before heading back into the base.

"He's crazy isn't he?" Aya asked bluntly once she was sure he was out of earshot.

"Completely out of his fucking mind." Grif confirmed.

"So why do you listen to him?" She asked curious.

"He does know how to use that Shotgun." Grif replied bluntly.

"He's really not so bad; he just doesn't always think things through." Simmons countered, kissing butt even in the butts absence.

"If by 'not always' you mean 'never', and by 'not that bad' you mean 'terrible' then sure." Grif scuffed.

"So what about you?" She asked turning toward the last man who'd arrived with the Red one, but been silent the entire time instead staring at her in a frankly somewhat uncomfortable away.

"Where did you get those shoes, they're fabulous!" Donut finally spoke though not about anything relevant as he continued eyeing her rather unusual footwear.

"Have you been listening to anything we've been saying?" She questioned befuddled.

"Not really, I like that shirt too that's a neat pattern and the colors really compliments your look!" Donut added giving a thumbs up.

"Umm thanks?" She edged away from him slightly and quickly turned back to the Grif and Simmons. "So why are you guys here anyway?"

"I ask myself that everyday…" Grif replied wistfully.

She looked at him funny for a moment but quickly ignored the odd response and moved on. "Well anyway the reason I'm here is there was a fire not far from here yesterday I don't suppose you'd know anything about that?

"Depends, do you have police here?" Grif asked.

"No." She replied simply.

"Okay then yeah we started it." He replied casually.

"Grif!" Simmons growled.

"What she's a reporter; even if we denied it she'd still go back and insinuate massively that we did it anyway just so she could move more papers."

Simmons paused to consider. "Yeah you're probably right actually."

"I'm standing right here." Aya noted flatly, she was used to be people talking trash about her, but normally they at least waited for her to leave.

"Yeah we know, we just don't care." Grif shrugged indifferently.

"So what's with those suits," She got over being offended and back to being curious rather quickly though. "Can you not breathe our air or something?"

"Actually that's backwards we have these suits so we can breath on other planets when we leave our own." Simmons informed her helpfully.

"Even through they never actually send us anywhere we can't breathe so it mostly just serves to trap and recirculate our BO." Grif added sarcastically.

"Yeah that is sort of true, plus have you ever noticed that none of the actual aliens seem to wear masks when they come to our planets? Seems kind of ass backwards really." Simmons noted on reflection.

"This is all you guys do all day isn't?" Aya cut in disappointed at the listless rambling.

"Yeah, pretty much." They both replied almost in unison.

"So you're not here to cause some big incident or invade us?" She asked downtrodden.

Grif snorted in derision at this. "We've been trying to take over this fucking canyon for five years from four other guys and failed. Man we couldn't invade a 7-11 if the clerk was armed with anything deadlier then a golf club."

"Oh come on, I think we could take him even if he had a baseball bat." Simmons countered in a rather weak knee manner.

"Overly optimistic as always Simmons." Grif replied dismissively.

"Well so much for my big scoop." Aya sighed miserably at the banal and pointless conversation unfolding before her.

"Don't feel bad it's just this canyon," Grif replied sagely. "Anything or anyone that enters this canyon becomes a failure at life."

She suddenly perked up again. "Oh so the canyon is cursed?"

"No, not really Grif is just being a melodramatic twat." Simmons instantly deflated her.

"I'm telling you, this place is evil man!" Grif insisted fervently.

"Oh shut up." Simmons replied feed up with his nonsense.

* * *

Nearby, Same Time

* * *

"Where could so much misfortune have possibly come from all the sudden? It's almost like its permeating and poisoning the land itself…"


	4. Karma is a Dish Best Served Cold

Busy, busy with various things the last few weeks, but I finally found time to crap out this little segment.

Anyway I kinda wanted to have a short note about something Heraklinios said since it's sort of relevant to how I intend to write this overall. Basically on the point of the Reds being calm when talking to Aya I think everyone in the series is beyond questioning almost anything. I think you see it even in the series itself, as time goes on even as the insanity level grows the level of disbelief begins dropping. It gets to the point that by Reconstruction Church is _more _willing to believe he's a _ghost_ then an AI construct. Hence my take is that even when confronted by the looniness of Touhou the response would be more like "sure why not" then anything else. So to my thinking, even before they ever showed up here they'd long ago learned to abandon common sense in the face of there own lunny universe.

So anyway on with Chapter 4...

* * *

Karma is a Dish Best Served Cold...

* * *

It took the better part of an hour, but the rest of the team soon located where Caboose had departed and began tracking him. Despite the parties feeble tracking skills Caboose wasn't exactly a fox and his trail wasn't very hard to follow. They finally traced his path into a clearing around a small pond and there standing near its edge was the lost idiot. In the excitement though the group failed to notice another figure further down the shoreline…

"Caboose!" Church shouted as he ran out of the wood line and up to the missing man, who for better or worse appeared unharmed.

"Hi Church!" Caboose shouted back happily as he turned around to face him as he jogged to a stop a few feet away.

Church was in no mood for happy greetings though as he was rather pissed with the idiot. "Damn it Caboose how many times have I told you not to wander off alone!" He demanded angrily.

Caboose paused for a moment as if he was actually trying to think up a number.

"It's a rhetorical question Caboose." Church informed him feeling his initial irritation quickly giving way to the regular resigned frustration. Caboose was so stupid it was hard to stay_ really_ angry at him. He was sort of like a dog who crapped on the rug from time to time, irritating, but it's not like you really expected much better from him.

"Rhe-toric-" Caboose began muttering to himself trying to sound the word out, as if that might somehow allow him to understand it's meaning.

"It means you don't have to answer it genius." Tucker informed him mockingly.

"Wait who the hell is that?" Church suddenly noted another figure at the shore of the nearby pond.

"Oh that's Cirno." Caboose informed him nonchalantly glancing over at her with the others.

The irritation suddenly resurfaced. "Caboose what have I told you about talking to random strange people you come across?" Church asked pointedly

"Not to." He replied smarted.

"Then why the hell did you?!"

"Well she's blue so it's okay." He announced as if this was a completely rock solid argue, and in his own twisted mind it was.

"Cirno? The hell kind of name is that anyway?" Tucker pondered aloud behind them.

"Sort of missing the bigger questions here Tucker," Church noted, "Okay so we have her name, but who is she Caboose?"

"She's my new friend!" He announced proudly providing not a shred of useful information.

"Hey Doc?" Church turned toward him wearily.

"Umm yes?" He stammered surprised he was suddenly being addressed.

"I don't suppose you have any pills to cure stupid do you?"

"Umm not that I know of…" He replied befuddled.

"Yeah I didn't think so, but you know was worth a shot." He sighed and turned back to the moron. Still seeing as Caboose had already blundered along and contacted her Church figured it couldn't hurt to question her for some information.

* * *

10 minutes later

* * *

Things did not go nearly as well as he'd hoped. First he'd tried to just get background information about her specifically, but what he got was rather disjointed, about like what you might get from a six year old if you asked them about themselves. About the only useful thing about he was able to extract from her was that she was apparently a "fairy". He quickly decided to move onto to trying to get information about the general area though he was hardly hopeful about his prospects.

"Okay so you're a fairy," Church repeated that slowly still with a hint of disbelief, "Whatever I'm beyond questioning shit like this so let's go with it." He quickly got over it though. "So anyway where are we?"

"The Bamboo Forest, duh." She replied condescendingly.

He gritted his teeth forcing himself to be diplomatic. "Right, so where is that in the wider scheme of things?"

"Huh?" He got nothing but a blank stare in response.

_Okay let's go with something easy. _"Like what planet are we on?"

"Earth!" She replied seemingly proud she could name what _planet_ she was on.

"Okay good and where on earth are we?" Church coaxed her along.

"Umm…" She grimaced thinking hard.

"Well this is proving helpful." Tucker noted sarcastically as he watched the increasingly pointless and absurd interrogation.

Church made a concerted effort to ignore him as he tried a different tact. "Okay, okay how about this, can you maybe lead us to someone who might know more?"

"Oh I know some people like that," She chirped happily and for a moment Church was hopeful, "but I'm lost so I can't find them." She added a moment later and he was suddenly forced to resist the urge to reach out and crush her neck like a cardboard tube.

"Shocking." Tucker deadpanned in contempt. "Maybe you should let Caboose talk to her again, he speaks idiot fluently." His irritation with the entire stupid outing had reached near critical mass and he'd now found a ready target to unload on.

"That's not very nice Tucker." Doc scolded him.

"Hey I'm not an idiot!" Cirno added in indignantly a moment later.

"Okay then what's four plus five plus four?" Tucker challenged her on the spur of the moment.

"Fifty four of course!" She responded smugly crossing her arms.

"Umm I'm afraid that's quite wrong miss." Doc informed her gently.

"No wonder Caboose liked her; she's as dumb as he is!" Tucker laughed mockingly.

"You're mean! Stop making fun me!" She fumed growing increasingly agitated.

"Or what you'll crrrry?" Tucker continued mocking her finding the exercise extremely therapeutic after the day's bullshit.

"Umm Tucker…" Caboose tried to interrupt him.

"Shut up Caboose this is fun." Tucker brushed him off.

"But Tucker…" Caboose was unusually insistent.

"What?!" He barked irritated at the distraction as he turned to face it.

"That's it I'm gonna teach you a lesson!" This yelled battle cry drew his attention right back to Cirno; although she was now flying about 20 feet off the ground.

"Oh wow she can fl—" Tucker was interrupted again by a foot long ice crystal whizzing past his head and missing him by mere inches. "Son of a bitch!"

"Son of a bitch!" Church added as stray rounds from the indiscriminate bombardment began landing around him as well.

"Son of a—OW MY FACE!" Doc began only to be pummeled by one of the huge ice shards, "Why do they always shoot me?! I'm a pacifist!" He moaned pathetically as he writhed about on the ground in pain. Neither Doc or Church were the intended target, but Cirno wasn't much of a marksmen, and once the two remaining blues started running around in a panic she had trouble telling which was which… So she just shot at both.

"Yeah she can control ice and fly, should I have mentioned that before?" Caboose queried absently while watching the carnage from his position safely out of the way of the attack.

"Caboose for god sake _do _something!" Church screamed at him as he and Tucker ran about like headless chickens attempting to evade the artificial hail storm being directed at them. Running around to avoid getting shot was luckily one skill both had become well versed in over the years.

"O-okay!" Caboose shouted back uncertainly quickly glancing between Cirno and his franticly dodging teammates as he tried to think of a plan. He was perhaps not surprisingly drawing a blank until he suddenly had a very Caboose sort of thought…

* * *

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! You had to go piss off the retarded magical psycho eh Tucker!?" Church cursed emphatically as they dove into the cover of a large tree which bought them a moment's respite.

"How the hell was I supposed to know she could fly and shot fucking ice bullets!" Tucker shouted back.

"Exactly, you had no idea what the fuck she could do!" Church bellowed.

"Why are you so pissed anyway you're already dead, I'm the one that should be worried!" Tucker countered.

"I hate you so mu--shit!" Church was interrupted by ice raining down on them from above and bypassing the cover of the tree forcing them run for there lives once more.

Linebreak

"Umm Excuse me." Caboose began as he simply walked up close behind Cirno as she continued bombarding his friends.

"Huh?" She paused her fusillade for a moment and glanced down at him.

"I was just wondering if you could maybe stop shooting my friends." Caboose asked a tad hesitantly.

"Oh they're your friends?" She asked surprised, "They're mean." She added scowling.

"Yeah I know." Caboose replied casually, "But I kinda like them and they're nice to me sometimes so if you could not shot big chunks of ice at them that would be pretty nice." He rambled off.

"Well I guess since they're your friends I can let them go this time, but they better not make fun of me again!" She huffed irritably.

"Don't worry I'll keep them under control." He nodded sternly.

Watching cautiously from the cover of several nearby stumps this turn of events filled the intended victims with mixed emotions. "Man, I think I might rather have been impaled by a giant icicle then saved like this." Tucker remarked despondently.

* * *

A short while later

* * *

"You think it's a good idea to just let it follow us?" Tucker asked suspiciously eyeing the fairy that was now accompanying them through the woods riding on Caboose shoulders.

"Not really, but do you want to tell it no?" Church asked raising an eyebrow, "Besides dumb as it is it still seems to know more about this place then us so it might be useful until we find someone with a functioning brain." He added over the radio to be sure he couldn't be heard.

"Umm she does have a name." Doc noted.

"Don't humanize it Doc, that's how the little bloodsuckers get the fangs in you." Church warned him with a completely straight face.

"Well that's not a very nice thing to say after she agreed to stop trying to kill us." He frowned disapprovingly.

"Yeah well I'm not a very nice person," Church replied bluntly, "and we just got rid of one little blue alien freak a month ago the last thing we need is to go adopting a replacement. Especially one that could kill us all if it gets angry at us."

"Plus she's way too young to hit on without it being creepy." Tucker added 'helpfully'.

"You know even beyond what's obviously wrong with that sentence I feel the need to point out she was just trying to kill you like 30 minutes ago Tucker." Church remarked bluntly.

"Yeah, but lots of women have wanted to kill me and I've hit on them anyway, you gotta take risks to score you know." He replied nonchalantly.

"That's… retarded and yet sort of sickly inspiring at the same time." Church replied astonished at the sheer audacity of the statement.

"He who dares wins, buddy," Tucker noted sagely, "He who dares wins."

"Or you end up horribly injured and I have to stitch you back together." Doc commented in an unusually cynical manner; the day's events, mostly being shot in the fact with a block of ice, apparently having made even him irritable.

"Stop ruining the moment asshole." Tucker scowled.


	5. The Plot, such as it is, Thickens!

And we're back with another installment of this nonsense. This time we get a glimmer of what could be some sort of "plot" being the idiot that I am I simply couldn't resist it, besides which I wanted to do my own take on some of the stuff from reconstruction. Again I'm going to be extremely liberal with what that series said and work in fairly board strokes, and by liberal I mean "basically toss out anything I don't really like "and by board strokes I mean "replace it with shit I made up myself". Fear not though for I hardly intend to make this some serious fic, but I have found that having a bit of a plot to hang the humor off of is useful. Enough of my rambling though here we go...

* * *

Underground Near Red Base

* * *

"Well that was… surprisingly anti-climatic." Wash mumbled as he emerged into what looked to be a cave. There hadn't even been a sense of movement really; he'd simply stepped through the rift and stepped out here with seemingly no time in between. He did notice a worrying fact though as he flipped on his night vision and scanned the area though, there was no rift here.

He grimaced and muttered a muffled curse at this. How the hell was he supposed to get back now? Then again perhaps that had been the plan all along… Could they have found him out and decided this was a fine and deniable way to be rid of him? No, there was no way they could have proved that he was anything but a loyal agent. Besides if they really intended to be rid of him his bosses weren't so stupid as to trust a random special anomaly to do it, they'd make_ sure_ he was dead.

Then again the glee with which they'd sent him in hinted to rather callous disregard for his safety, well a bigger one then before anyway, a trend he'd increasingly noticed over the past few months. He couldn't help feel they were testing him, seeing if he'd keep following increasingly reckless orders. In other words they were quite possibly looking for an excuse to get rid of him if he disobeyed. Still the orders had progressed from merely questionable at first to increasingly bordering on suicidal. They might be actively trying to kill him, without having to actually kill him themselves at this point…

Still none of that mattered if he couldn't find a way back and by the looks of it he wasn't going to find it here in this cave. After a bit of exploring he found a passage leading upward and began following it hoping to find the surface. The cave turned out to be rather shallow and as he emerged topside he found a welcome sight.

It seemed the entire canyon had somehow been transported, but was pretty much intact. He could also see one of the bases from this position and several troops atop it showing some of the residents had survived as well. Excellent maybe they could shed some light on what had happened? With that in mind he made his way away from the cave and toward the base.

* * *

The reason the troops were gathered atop the base was because Sarge had rounded them up to prepare for another half assed recon mission.

"Alright men," He began his briefing, "Now me and Lopez have been working hard to try and fix the teleporter."

[Sitting around ordering me to 'work faster' does not count as working in any appreciable sense of the word.] Lopez droned irritably.

"Quite so, as Lopez just said we've unfortunately destroyed several key systems which we have no replacements for!" He announced grimly. "Without those parts we could be stuck here forever!"

"Awesome." The sarcasm in Grif's response was a bit halfhearted really being more wearily resigned then stinging.

"Just think of all the blues not killed, and all the battles not fought if can't return!"Sarge continued on wailing melodramatically.

"On second thought maybe being stuck here isn't so bad…" Grif pondered aloud.

"Why if we can't get back we might be labeled deserters or even worse_ traitors_!" Sarge continued on theatrically even though no one listening really gave a shit. "But don't worry men I won't let that happen! So in order to locate the parts we need we'll be going out ever day in order to scour this vast uncharted wilderness for them!"

"You know it's entirely possibly that the parts you need don't even exist on this planet." Grif noted flatly.

"There you go again always being negative! Why can't you--" Sarge began only to be cut off by a shout from down below.

The entire team made its way over the edge and looked down to see a man in dark gray armor standing down below. "Oh hey there," He began politely, "I was wondering if I could ask you guys some questions?"

"More of them!?" Sarge suddenly groused in alarm.

"Wait you mean I'm not first guy that's come through?" Washington asked confused.

"See Simmons this is why you have to deal with these reporter types forcefully!" Sarge admonished him. "If you talk to one of them then they all show up! Like I said they're vultures!" He pronounced sternly.

"Reporter type?" Wash muttered confused. "No I think you're confuse—" He began to try and explain.

"Save your breath muckraker," Sarge cut him off taking aim with his shotgun, "We don't need your kind around here!" and opened fired.

"Shit!" Wash dashed for a nearby rock as Sarge fired at him as quickly as he could, although he was missing completely since the range was more then 20 feet.

"Grif, Simmons what the hell are you waiting for help me kill him!" Sarge commanded angrily.

"Well I don't know he doesn't seem-" Simmons began hoping to talk him down.

"Do it or your next." Sarge was having none of it this time.

"Works for me," Grif shrugged and shouldered his rifle and was quickly joined by a reluctant Simmons. Still by this time their target had already managed to flee outside effective range and the shooting was more for show then anything.

"Haha, that'll teach him to come poking around here!" Sarge boasted proudly as he lowered his empty shotgun.

"Yeah we sure showed him sir." Simmons sighed in dismay.

* * *

"Well, that could have gone better." Wash muttered darkly as he caught his breath in cover. Showing himself again around their certainly didn't seem wise as they seemed to have already decided, for whatever reason, to shot him on sight. So with that door closed he'd just have to move onto his second option: the blues. Hopefully they'd be… not as clinically insane.

The journey to the base wasn't exactly and epic trek and he arrived just a few minutes later. Given the earlier debacle he decided to be a bit more discreet this time, just in case they were equally as crazy, and approached quietly to scope the installation out. He found no obvious signs of activity and after his once over made his way toward the entrance, but just before he was about knock he noticed a noted tapped to the door. He yanked the small slip of paper loose to read it.

_Dear, Reds_

_If you're reading this I'm sure you've come by to annoy us by doing something inane and stupid. Unfortunately as you can see we've decided to go out and investigate this latest screw up. So I'm afraid you'll have to save annoying the piss out of us for another day, sorry to disappoint you._

_-Church._

_P.S. I hid your stupid DVDs and you're not getting them back until you give me back the games I lent you assholes last month._

_P.P.S. We also finished off pretty much everything from our last supply run besides those bowel busting packaged rations like a week ago so don't bother raiding the kitchen; I know you were thinking it assholes._

"The hell is this…?" Wash muttered to himself as he read the odd note, this entire mess just seemed to get weirder by the moment.

Then again thinking back he heard rumors about this place. They said that bizarre things happened here, some of the whispers and rumors almost made it sound like people where afraid of the place… Perhaps rightly so as so far two high level agents had been killed on assignment here. He'd need to be careful not to underestimate them, they could be much more dangerous then they looked.

He'd hoped the troops here might give him some information on what the hell happened, but one team had tried to murder him for asking and the other had apparently wandered off to parts unknown. Now he could have just sat where he was and waited for them to come back, but that was hardly and effective use of time. He'd need to check out the area sooner or later, why not now?

They'd helpfully left the rope they'd used to exit the canyon dangling from it's side, and with a start like that he didn't think tracking them would be very difficult. Really how hard could it be to follow a bunch of guys in half ton power armor through pristine wilderness?

* * *

"Okay I'm willing to admit at this point that we're probably a bit lost." Church announced as they paused in still another random clearing to catch there breath.

"A _bit_?" Tucker countered venomously.

"Well okay maybe allot lost." He conceded before quickly brushing it aside. "Anyway it's getting dark and we should prepare to spend the night out here, so we're going to need to make a camp."

"Ohh I love camping!" Caboose chimed in happily. "We can roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories!"

"What's a Marshmallow is it tasty?" Cirno questioned from atop Caboose shoulders.

"Oh it's really good it's like umm..." Caboose began eagerly then stumbled when he was forced to try and actually explain the concept of a marshmallow.

"It's pretty much what you'd get if a blob of melted sugar somehow mated with a balloon." Church informed her sarcastically only for her to stare blankly, he should have figured as much. "It's a puffy ball of sugar." He sighed.

"Ohhh! I want one! I want one!" She demanded giddily.

"Well you can't have one." He replied bluntly.

"Why not?!" She huffed puffing our her cheeks in irritation.

"Well mostly since we _don't fucking have any_." He responded irritably and turned his back on her completely unconcerned with her scowl; if she wanted to kill him let her as he honestly doubted hell could be much worse then his life. "Anyway we're going to need a fire, Tucker get on it."

"Why the hell do I have to start the fire, do I look like a boy scout or something?"

"Why do you have to talk back whenever I tell you to do _anything_?" Church's patience, what scant reserves were left after this day long field trip from hell, was rapidly waning.

"Probably because you always tell me to do stupid, boring, or dangerous shit!" Tucker shot back with a frankly not entirely baseless accusation.

Church was silent for a moment as he considered a proper reply to his charge. He'd just about settled on "shut up and get to work Tucker" when the ground suddenly shook getting everyone's attention. The sound from the apparently nearby explosion arrived a split second later, along with a flaming tree limb nearly five feet long landing in there midst.

"Fires started." Tucker announced sarcastically earning a glare from Church.

Before he could reply verbally though several more explosions followed the first, which was worrying in itself, but not quite as worrying as the fact they seemed to be getting closer.

"We should probably start running." Church suggested flatly as they continued growing in volume clearly getting closer and closer, and now perhaps only a few hundred meters away at most.

"Best idea you've had all day!" Tucker shouted having already begun to flee while Churches back was turned.

Church spun around to see Tucker and the rest of them already fleeing into the wood line having left him behind. "Oh you mother fuc—"Before he could finish his hate filled curse though he suddenly found himself engulfed in one of the explosions and then tumbling end over end through the air. As he spiraled several hundred feet into the air his first thought was "Damn this forest is allot bigger then a thought, no wonder we got lost" followed rapidly by "Shitshitshitshitshit" as the earth which had been receding below him now began racing back up to greet him.

"Will Church by okay?" Caboose hesitated for a moment concerned for his "friends" safety when he heard the explosions just behind them.

"Fuck Church, what has he ever done for us?!" Tucker shouted back as he kept running

When another blast erupted near Caboose blowing apart a dozen trees and showering his shields in wood splinters though even his dumbass could see it was time to go. Ducking low he quickly followed Tuckers lead by fleeing in a panic.

* * *

One the upsides of being a ghost inhabiting a robotic body was that you where pretty much immune to such annoyances as concussions and brain damage. Which in this case was a very lucky thing seeing as he'd landed on his head after the fall. There was a pretty big dent on his helmet, but a little work with a hammer should take care of that; he could do that right after he used it to cave in Tuckers skull.

Still his terrible vengeance would have to wait until he actually found the damn base, which was now going to be harder then ever thanks to his unplanned flight. Still he gained some comfort in the fact they now had to be just as lost and were without his leadership probably doomed. Still while the idea of Tucker dying alone, cold, and helpless in the forest had its appeal it simply wouldn't be as satisfying as doing the deed himself.

His course of action decided on he began his search for the others; well okay more like he started randomly wandering around the forest really.


	6. What’s so wrong with illogical vengence?

Heraklinios: I liked Wash allot so I had to get him in here, plus he will inadvertly set my overall plot in motion. I said from the start I will be taking SOME parts of Reconstuction for inspriation and he's a big aspect of what I have planned. Plus he's nice in this setting since as an outsider with a functioning brain not yet contaminated by Blood Glutches insanity and thus can play the straight man for Touhou more outlandish elements.

Anyway I had some computer problems combined the holidays that delayed this a bit, but it ended up being a bit longer then the other chapters so hopefully that makes up for it a bit. Here we see the plot advacning a bit more plus hopefully more funny though who knows, I make this shit up as I go along so it could be god awful.

* * *

"Tucker, do you have any idea what you're doing?" Doc asked politely, but pointedly as he followed a few steps behind the target of the comment. Since losing Church they'd basically just been wandering around in the woods as it grew increasingly dark seemingly without even a vague plan of action.

Say what you would about Church, but at least he took charge and _tried _to accomplish things. He nearly always failed, but hey effort had to count for something. Plus he could be genuinely intimidating while Tucker consistently failed to either inspire or intimidate anyone. The fact Doc was willing to actually call him out, in his own passive aggressive way, at all was a rather pointed indictment of his leadership skills.

"I know exactly what I'm doing," Tucker shot back. "Like how I got rid of that little flying kid!" He noted perhaps the only positive thing to come out of this mess.

"How did _you_ do that? She just ditched us in the chaos to save herself." Doc countered bluntly.

"I miss her already." Caboose added mournfully and was completely ignored as usual.

"Well okay fine, so maybe that wasn't entirely my doing, but I do have a plan." Tucker remained confident.

"Which is?" Doc asked a tad skeptically.

"To find a way out of the woods." Tucker informed him casually.

"… Yeah I can't see any holes in that well considered strategy at all." Doc replied flatly.

"Hey quick question who has rank here?" Tucker responded irritably nodding toward the PFC insignia on his shoulder.

"Well actually…" Doc began.

"Medical Super Private is NOT a real rank!" Only to be rather forcibly cut off, but before the pointless pissing match could go on a loud crack quickly followed by a muffled curse

was heard in the nearby undergrowth quickly drawing the entire group's attention.

After several seconds of consideration Tucker finally decided to issue a challenge. "Alright whoever you are, come out of their!" He demanded firmly. "Unless you're like a face eating alien or heartless killing machine then you can stay in their and we'll go away!" He added a moment later considerably weakening the impact of the first pronouncement.

"I'm coming out let's not doing anything hasty." A voice answered back reassuringly a few seconds before a man in grey armor stepped out of the shadows and into view.

"Okay who the hell are you?" Tucker asked slightly confused having never seen the man before, but at the same time rather relieved he seemed to be, maybe this planet was inhabited after all?

"Names, Washington." The man replied simply.

"_Ah shit_." Tucker muttered in dismay.

* * *

Elsewhere

* * *

Church frowned as he paused at another clearing that looked like every other fucking clearing he'd come across. Muttering under his breath he decided it was time to reconsider his earlier plan since finding his team in this mess was looking impossible. Having grown tired of endlessly wandering around the woods for the moment he slumped down against a nearby tree to consider his options; all the while still muttering to himself occasionally about how much his life sucked.

So engrossed in his irritable moody brooding was he that he completely failed to notice that his mutter seemed to be producing an echo despite its minimal volume. Indeed it wasn't until the source of the "echo" stepped out of the woods only feet away that he finally took notice of it, and it of him.

"Who the hell are you?" They demanded simultaneously fixing each other with glares.

The "intruder" was a rather disheveled looking woman wearing scorched and tattered clothes to match her soot stained face. She was hobbling along partially supporting herself with a stick though what caught his attention most was the outlandishly long white hair that fell way past her waist, which was also singed and scorched by the way.

She looked like she'd wandered into the exhaust of a jet engine—wait a second. "You blew me up didn't you!" He suddenly accused her angrily putting the pieces together.

"What are you—oh that was you?" She remarked absently suddenly recalling briefly catching sight of someone being hurled skyward by one of her missed shots. "Yeah sorry about that, was sort of preoccupied and didn't really see you down their."

"Well at least you apologized, that's more then most people do when they blow me up." He grumbled backing off a bit. "Besides you look like you didn't get off much better so it's harder to be pissed off." He noted regarding her bedraggled appearance. "What the hell were you doing anyway?"

"Nothing you need to worry about." She snapped back making clear she wasn't interested in discussing that topic and quickly shifted to another one. "Anyway I'd assume since you're wandering around here at dusk you're lost."

"Well maybe a bit." He admitted half-heartedly.

"I can lead you out, but I could use a change of clothes first. My house isn't far from here." She gestured for him to follow her as she began hobbling off again.

"You sure, you look pretty messed up." He replied mildly concerned.

"I've had worse and I heal fast." She replied absently.

Still a bit concerned, but not really in much position to argue Church shrugged and followed her. He'd have offered to carry her, but somehow he got the feeling that might not be such a great idea.

* * *

Somewhere

* * *

"Okay so if I'm getting this right some bizarre unexplained pheromone whose soruce you have not clue about transported you guys out here about a day ago, at which point you decided to go out and recon the area, but then you got hopelessly lost in here and have been wandering around for hours." Wash gave a brief recap of what the blues had explained to him over the last few minutes, once he'd clammed and assured them he wasn't here to try and kill them anyway.

"Yeah pretty much." Tucker affirmed.

He frowned slightly in his helmet, that wasn't very useful information at all. It still gave no clue where they were, how exactly they'd been transported, or how they could get back. Still one question was foremost in his mind before all others. "How did you even manage to get lost though?" He asked befuddled.

"Mostly by wandering in circles I think." Tucker replied finding the question a bit confusing.

Wash stared at him for a moment slightly dumbfounded by the response. "Why didn't you just use your compass?"

"Huh?" Tucker replied confused.

"Your suit has a built in compass." Wash informed him even more dumbstruck that he himself somehow didn't seem to know this. "All you had to do was a pick a heading and hold it and you'd have come out of the woods sooner or later." A heavy and awkward silence followed this rather embarrassing revelation.

"Oh… well ours must be broken or something." Tucker finally announced simply.

"All of them?" Wash questioned disbelievingly.

"Yeah strangest thing, all of them are broke at once, what are the odds?" Tucker questioned rhetorically.

"Astronomically small." Wash informed him bluntly.

"Hey, shit happens." Tucker shrugged sticking to his story. "But yours is working so I guess we're in luck!"

Wash held his tongue figuring that being potentially isolated and alone out here he might need allies, and this lot had at least not tried to kill him on sight. "Alright stay close and keep your eyes peeled." He ordered taking charge of the group and leading them off back along the general heading he'd taken to find them in the first place.

* * *

Back Elsewhere

* * *

Apparently when the woman said nearby she meant nearby as she and Church arrived at a small house set at the edge of a clearing in the woods only a few minutes later. It was weakly lit by a few lanterns and showed no signs of electricity or any other modern accruements. As they got closer and he could make out more detail it appeared to be of Asian architecture. Specifically he would guess Japanese, but he could be wrong.

If taken together with that blue haired idiot's proclamation they were on earth, though he wasn't sure how much stock he could put in that, it would narrow down the area at least. Given the apparent lack of development maybe he'd somehow been sent back in time again? Then again it was also possible she was just a crazy luddite loner that lived out in the woods waiting for the apocalypse.

Though their was the matter of her being able to hurl fireballs and fly, which he didn't recall his history lessons in school mentioning was a common power among people from Asia. Unless all those kung-fu movies were allot more accurate then he would have guessed. Then again he also didn't recall much about coming back from the dead as a ghost or being hurled through space and time by nuclear explosions in those lessons either so there was certainly room for such things to slip through the cracks…

The interior of the house was rather rustic and sparsely lit by only candles here and there; candles he noted which seemed to spring to life spontaneously when she entered. It had only three rooms a living room, a kitchen, and what he presumed was a bedroom given that was where she quickly retreated once inside.

She was gone for some time before finally emerging back outside in new clothes and with most of the soot wiped from her face, though smudges of it lingered here and there. Her limp already seemed to be disappearing and she seemed considerably more spry then before; even her hair somehow seemed to have largely mended itself. Apparently when she said fast she also meant fast.

"So what are you anyway like a warrior or something?" She asked figuring based on his weird armor he must be some kind of fighter. That and the fact he had survived that flight which meant he had to be reasonably tough.

"Yeah I guess." He shrugged back.

"You guess?" She deadpanned less then impressed by his lukewarm reply. "Oh and I suppose I should get your name, you can call me Mokou."

"Names Church, and as for my job it's just not really by choice." He shrugged once more. "I just constantly seem to end up in the middle of places full of things trying to kill me."

She didn't seem sure what to make of that so changed the subject as she headed toward the kitchen. "Theirs no moon tonight and if we set out now we'd end up covering most of the distance in the dead of night, and even I get lost from time to time when it's that dark. It'd be easier to leave in the morning. You can sleep in there, but try anything and so help me..."

"Don't worry I know not to mess with women capable of brutally killing me a dozen different ways, lord do I know not to mess with them." Church assured her whole heartedly and she got the distinct impression he was speaking from experience.

"Well as long as that's settled seeing as I did kind of accidentally blow you up I suppose I could feed you." She announced as she began rummaging in a cabinet.

"Don't worry about me I don't really _need_ to eat." He informed her casually.

"Oh are you like a magician or something?"

"Huh?" He asked confused as to what that would have to do with eating. "Umm no, but my body is mechanical so I don't need food."

"Mechanical? I've never heard of anything like that." She replied skeptical.

"Yeah well I'm not really from around here." He replied remaining cagey on details.

"Huh, I didn't think the outside was that advanced." She noted idly.

"Outside?" Church replied curious.

"This region is called Gensokyo it's sealed from the outside world with a magical barrier that's quite hard to penetrate." She informed him casually.

That got a slightly raised eyebrow from him. "So like a pocket universe or something?"

"I don't know I'm not really involved with it, all I know is that very little from the outside world can get in." She shrugged.

Church leaned back to consider this information; maybe being blown up hadn't been such a total loss after all. Though this new revelation raised all sorts of new questions as well, questions she didn't seem to have the answer too. "So who would one talk to about this barrier then?"

"Probably the Shrine Maiden I suppose." Mouko shrugged. "She's in charge of looking after it anyway. I can give you directions once we out of the forest tomorrow if you want."

"Thanks." He replied genuinely before the room slipped in a rather awkward silence as she went about cooking something and he basically just sort of sat twiddling his thumbs. Finally with his boredom compelled him to attempt further conversation, and being at times a bit too stubborn for his own good he went back to a previous topic that still bothered him. "Seriously though what the hell were you doing out their when you blasted me."

"I told you I didn't want to talk about it. "

"But I do." Church countered. "Mainly because if hanging around you is going to get me caught in the middle of another fireworks display I might feel like taking my chances with the woods."

"If that's it then don't worry about, she won't come looking for trouble, probably." She replied irritably.

"She?" Church pressed and noted she winced slightly at the slip.

"Well let's just say I don't get along with one of my neighbors." She muttered back.

"By 'don't get along' I'm assuming you mean 'want to brutally murder', yeah I know the feeling." Church responded with a derisive laugh.

"I don't need you to tell me—wait what?" She had instinctively begun a reply about how he was in no position to question her only to have him basically endorse her actions.

"Oh yeah us and the guys that live by us having been trying to kill each other for years." Church announced matter of factly drawing a raised eyebrow. "Well at first anyway, nowadays we really don't try as hard as we used too. I think we mostly 'fight' out of habit and boredom at this point." Slightly befuddle by his bizarre attitude and admissions Mokou wasn't quite sure how to respond. "So what'd she do anyway?" He queried casually.

"She did something to my father a long time ago." She replied without even really thinking.

"How long?" He asked curious.

"A bit over a thousand years." She replied bluntly.

"A thousand plus years seeking vengeance huh?" Church muttered rhetorically though strangely he didn't question the fact she'd basically just said she was over a thousand years old.

"This is where you tell me how stupid it is and that I should stop right?" She questioned condescendingly.

"Na that would be pretty hypocritical seeing as I wasted almost as much time on something similar; although I like to think my motive might be slightly better." Church responded casually.

"And what was that motive?" Mokou asked pointedly.

"Well the one that most drove my desire for vengeance was them blowing up and killing my girlfriend in front of me." He informed her.

"Okay yeah that would be a pretty good reason for revenge." She conceded. "But you're saying you're over a thousand years old?" She questioned suspiciously.

"Yeah see at one point I got blown back in time." She quirked an eyebrow at the matter of fact way he announced that. "Long story maybe later, but yeah anyway I was hurled back in time like a thousand years and ended up in some ancient alien facility. Anyway since the planet that I was on was uninhabited up to like a few decades before when I left I was pretty much stuck there for about a millennia or so before anyone showed up again."

"So you were totally alone for a thousand years?" She questioned slightly taken a back. It was true she largely isolated herself, but the option of contact was always there and she did have occasional dealings with others. She honestly wasn't sure how she'd handle being utterly alone for a thousand years.

"Well not totally, the base had an entity that controlled it named Gary, but his main skill was telling really annoying and lame jokes." Church clarified.

"Being alone suddenly sounds preferable." Mokou remarked bluntly.

"Actually I was glad for the company, even if he did sort of become like background noise after the first century or so." Church shrugged. "Anyway he was pretty useful though since he informed me he could build a teleporter to send me back… in a thousand years."

"Well that's helpful." She noted blandly.

"Yeah I thought the same thing, but then I figured out that I'd actually been sent back _more _then a thousand years. So if the teleporter was done in a thousand I could then use it to get back _before_ the chain of events that caused my own death and thus also cut off the events that sent be back in time." He explained slyly. "Oh and use my knowledge of the future to quite possibly wreck horrible vengeance on those that had wronged me." He added as a casual afterthought.

"Wait you're dead, I thought you were mechanical?" She asked confused.

"Yeah that's another long story that's not really important to this one," He quickly brushed over that bit. "But anyway the point is that driven by hate and with the goal of revenge in mind I spent more or less a thousand years just obsessing over getting back at everyone. So yeah I can pretty easily understand being driven and obsessed by hate for a thousand years or so, it is one damn good motivator to keep waking up in the morning."

"So how'd this plan work out anyway?" She asked curious, though still not sure if she actually bought the story.

"Not so well, it seems the universe pretty much hate's me so what happened was that in trying to _prevent_ all the horrible things that happened I _caused _all the horrible things that happened." He replied a tad embarrassed.

"You know it sort of seems like there might be a lesson in there somewhere…" Mokou noted flatly.

"Hey I didn't question_ your_ mad quest for vengeance I'd appreciate the same courtesy." He responded irritably.

"True, sorry about that." She replied honestly. "So are you still trying to get revenge?"

"Well I do have to admit that after simmering for a thousand years and then seeing that my own actions caused most of the problems I was forced to reconsider my views, but after much reflection I concluded that I still had plenty of reasons for hating them and seeking vengeance that were still entirely valid." He concluded thoughtfully.


	7. The Nuclear Option

Hallo to what few people are still reading this crap, I am alive but schools has started up again so I've been having to speed most of my time writing papers and reading text books. In the interests of hopefully keeping some momentum and moving forward I've decided to see if I can't produce shorter chapters more often. So instead of the older 2 to 3,000 word ones this one is like 800 something and my target will be like 1000 which I can often manage to get done in one sitting when I have some time. I suppose we'll see how it works, but there's a high probability I won't be able to keep myself to this and will end up going back to highly sporadic big chapters again as I'm want to do.

Anyway on with the crap, this time we'll be checking back in what the other half of our cast is up too.

* * *

Red Base, Time... way to damn early in the morning.

* * *

"Alright so I bet you're all wondering why I called you up here so early!" Sarge announced with his usual enthusiasm to his assembled team despite the insanely early hour. The group of half asleep and grumpy men was assembled in the bases kitchen at there superiors behest, most of have rather still been in bed.

"Not really, but I'm sure it's stupid." Grif mumbled under his breath into his coffee.

"You got something to say maggot?" Sarge turned to glare at him.

"Oh no, I can just barely contain my excitement over what wondrous announcement it is you're about to make!" Grif replied sarcastically.

Sarge seemed about to go after him before Simmons quickly intervened. "Sir ignore the moron, we should get on with business... " _So I can hopefully go back to bed. _He added mentally.

"Good point Simmons; we can't allow one malcontent idiot to derail our operations!" Sarge agreed after a moment's consideration, and though Grif seemed less then pleased with these remarks he remained silent under a glare from Simmons. "On that note I have good news!"

"Well that'd be a nice change of pace." Grif was once more unable to contain his sarcasm. Nothing good or nice every happened to them unless horrible baggage was attached, _nothing._

"After intensive study me and Lopez think we can rebuild the matter translocater, and then by reversing the polarity send us back!" That was an unusually positive start, but where was the "but" there was _always _a "but"… "_But _in order to do so we'll need at least five pounds of highly enriched plutonium."

"Wait that thing had plutonium in it?!" Simmons boggled.

"Of course, translocating matters takes so much energy the only suitable power source was a nuclear core!" Sarge replied as if that ought to be obvious.

"Isn't that stuff radioactive?!" Grif added alarmed.

"Extremely so!" Sarge affirmed.

"And didn't that machine BURN AND EXPLODE!?" Simmons noted also extremely unsettled by this revelation.

"Wait doesn't that mean now we could be radioactive, that can't be good!" Donut blanched as he too put together the pieces.

"Now, now calm down just because something is radioactive doesn't mean it's deadly! After all even sunshine is radiation! In fact I even have this chart I made up in case this came up!" " Sarge admonished them in an unusually logical manner. He quickly produced the aforementioned document and pinned it up to wall behind them. "Now as you can see I've marked out some common radiation sources here in order to compare their overall output in terms of 'sunshine units'." And quickly descended back into his usual insanity.

The chart ranged from "bad sunburn" at the bottom up to "Supernova" at the top. Besides each source was a smiling yellow cartoon sun being orbited by radiation warning symbols with a number underneath it. "Now as you can see by this chart we were only exposed to about 10,000 sunshine units and at such a mild dosage level the increase in the risk of horrible death by cancer is rather modest and any such death is likely to take years to manifest. So based on this we can clearly see that the radiation dosage we've received will not be a factor in our current mission!"

"Umm sir what about those of us that would prefer _not _to die of cancer at all?" Donut queried curious.

"Tough cookies! You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, or being exposed to potentially fatal radiation as the case maybe." Sarge responded sternly silencing any further discussion of the topic. "Now that we have that out of the way let's move on to more good news! Using my newly built radiation scanner I've managed to detect what I believe to be a cache of plutonium only a few miles away!"

"Well that's improbably convenient." Simmons noted flatly.

"But, more bad news!" Sarge continued on. "It seems this deposit is up on that giant inhospitable looking and erriy mountain."

"Figures." Grif sighed.

"Umm Sir if I recall correctly plutonium only occurs in large concentrations as a result of refining so wouldn't that tend to imply someone refined it, and further that they might not just want to give us a bunch of their deadly fissile material for free?" Simmons pointed out a fairly obvious issue.

"I'm sure if we ask them nicely and explain it's for scientific purposes they'll be happy to help." Sarge seemed unfazed.

"And if they're not?" Simmons pressed the issue as it was rather critical.

"Well…" Sarge racked his shotguns slide.

"So we just try and steal it then?" Simmons sighed.

"Don't be so negative we won't be stealing, we'll be encouraging them to let us borrow some!" Sarge replied dismissively.

"So we can flee back to another planet and never return what we took." Simmons noted pointedly.

"Borrowing in a way so you never have to give what you took back is the best kind of borrowing!" Sarge announced jovially.

"We're so going to start some kind of war…" Simmons sighed wearily.


	8. Be Very Quiet We're Hunting Wabbits

And we're back again once more returning to the blues, which I will admit have sort of been hogging the spotlight as of late. thing is the ideas for them are just sort of flowing a bit better at the moment I have their arc planned a bit ahead, but I'm frankly still kicking around ideas for how exactly the Red half is going to work out, but hopefully I'll be able to make my mind up soon and really get them moving. It probably doesn't help that I must admit I kind of like the blues mix of personalities better. Donut in particular I've been having issues working with and I've kind of been giving him throw away lines just to establish he's actually there. I must admit I kind of liked him better in his S1-2 form where he was a tad clueless but well meaning, I'm at the point that I might just start going with that with slight gay undertones. Maybe I can have him get smacked on the head to explain it...

But I digress from my ramblings to present the latest severing of cliche crap. So please enjoy, or don't it's not like it matters to me if you like my stuff!

* * *

The Night Before The Last Chapters Events

* * *

"Why are we still walking its dark as hel—ow son of a bitch!" Tucker cursed as he smacked his head against a low hanging limb.

They'd been following Wash's lead for about an hour now and it had become completely dark. This didn't seem to faze the freelancer in the slightest, but the rest of the group was frankly getting a bit edgy wandering around the forest at night. Night vision was all well and good, but in the thick bush visibility was still quite limited.

"It's better to move at night, we'll be harder to detect and it'll be easier to flee if we encounter trouble, and use your damn radio you could give away our location." Wash lectured wearily.

"Yeah that's great, but I'm tired and want to sleep." Tucker replied at least obeying the command to switch to radio communications.

Wash paused to consider that request for a moment if they'd woken up early this morning they could indeed be getting somewhat fatigued and a short rest might be in order. "When did you wake up?"

"Eh I don't know noon, or maybe half past I didn't really look at the clock." Tucker shrugged back.

Wash glared back at him from behind his faceplate. "You've only been awake for eight hours and you're bitching?"

"Hey man that's an eight hour day in my book!" Tucker replied defensively.

"That's not how the Army works." Wash shot back irritably.

"Well it's how we work! Haven't you ever heard about 'when in room'" Tucker replied getting a tad annoyed.

"You mean 'Rome'" Wash corrected him.

"Whatever same difference," Tucker waved it off.

"It's really not the same, _at all_." Wash replied flatly.

"Anyway the point is since you came here you should like go with our customs and stuff." Tucker pronounced with an air of authority he had no right to wield.

"Even if the customs apparently involve being stupid and lazy?" Wash shot back rolling his eyes.

"Yes—hey!" Tucker scowled as his brain suddenly registered the insult.

"It is true I can't order you to keep moving," Wash finally conceded after a moment and Tucker looked rather smug at the announcement. "But it's equally true I'm under no obligation to not just abandoned you and keep going myself." Tucker didn't look smug anymore and hurried to catch up as Wash kept walking.

As they continued on into the night Wash spared a glance back at the group behind him. He just couldn't figure them out at all; hadn't these guys killed not one but _two_ Freelancers? That was no easy feat, and yet they act like complete morons… could it be some kind of ruse? Were they setting him up for something?

He was removed from his musings by a slight blip on his motion tracker, it was only there for a moment and then it vanished again, but it elicited a scowl all the same. He'd noticed it several times in the last half hour or so appearing at the edge of the trackers range, sometimes for slightly longer then others, but always too far away for a visual. What this meant was simple: they were being stalked.

By _what _he didn't know; although he was suspicious that a member of their team had supposedly 'gone missing' and now he was being shadowed by what looked to be a man sized blip. He was equally suspicious that none of them had seemed to notice or comment on it, but he certainly wasn't going to give away that he'd seen it, he'd play their little game for now…

The group continued on with Wash keeping his eyes split between his motion tracker and the surrounding forest. The contact seemed to be working it's away around to get out in front of them, once it had gotten ahead he ceased detecting it. His eyes narrowed slightly and he focused even more intensely on his surroundings as this reeked of the set up for an ambush. Suddenly he halted in his tracks throwing up his hand to signal a stop…

"Umph!" Only for Tucker to walk right into his back. "Why the hell did you stop?!" He questioned irritated.

"Why the hell _didn't_ you stop!" Wash shot back.

"You didn't say too!" Tucker countered.

"I gave a hand signal!" Wash shouted finally feed up.

"Pff man I don't know that sign language crap." Tucker replied shrugging and Wash had to resist the urge to smack him upside the head.

"Whatever just fucking stay here!" He cursed irritably as he moved forward to investigate what he'd spotted up ahead.

It was subtle, but the combined infrared and image intensification of his helmet's night vision had spotted it due to a slight temperature differential. It was a patch of ground in the middle of the path that was slightly cooler then the rest and as he approached it became increasingly clear the ground there had been excavated. He kneeled next to the disturbed ground and withdrew his combat knife from its seethe to probe the anomaly.

To his surprise with only a slight bit of pressure the knife seemed to pierce through into a hollow void beyond. When a bit of wiggling confirmed as much he reached out with his hand and grabbed hold of what turned out to be a weaved mat of bamboo covered in dirt. With a casual yank he pulled the mat aside to reveal what looked to be at least an eight foot deep pit trap… Oddly though it was just a simple hole and there were no sticks, mines, or other nastiness inside the trap.

Suddenly the blip on his tracker returned, much closer now, but it was moving away quickly. Ignoring the surprised shouts of the rest of the group Wash broke out into a full sprint into the bush in pursuit. There was a good chance whoever had set and been watching that trap was also their shadow. He moved with a speed that belied his armored bulk, smashing aside smaller trees that impeded his progress as he tore through the undergrowth like a raging bull.

Given this racket his target was quite aware of his purist for all the good it was doing her as he was clearly closing the gap. _How the hell can he move so fast in that get up?! Bah doesn't matter gotta think of something quick!_ As her mind raced for a way out a faint shout reached her ears. "Tewi! Damn it Tewi where are you!?" perfect timing.

Reisen was, as was often the case mired in a mix of annoyance and near panic as she wandered the woods looking for her pint sized "subordinate". They'd had reports of intruders wandering around near the grounds, but as soon as they'd headed out to investigate Tewi had ignored her commands as usual and taken off on her own. She had no idea what the little imp was planning, but she could guess it would be troub--

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the source of her irritation emerging from the woods at a full sprint. Before she could even begin her lecture though the diminutive girl sprinted right past her, crossed the clearing in record time, and disappeared into the woods once more. A tad befuddled Reisen nonetheless recovered fairly quickly and moved to pursue her.

Wash watched the signal suddenly drop off his motion tracker, for a moment, but then reappear at roughly the same position. They'd probably paused for a moment to try and figure out where to go, but it was a critical mistake as it let him close the last of the distance between them. As he burst through the tree line into a clearing he caught sight of a figure running toward the far side with their back to him. "I've got you now!" He bellowed in victory as he dug in his heels and launched himself forward not so much running as covering the distance a series of flying leaps that covered a half dozen meters each.

Reisen spun around in alarm at the shout from behind her, but only whirled around enough to see a hulking silhouette bounding across the clearing directly at her in a blur of motion. "WAAAHHH!" Her inarticulate scream of terror was all she had time for before she was clobbered by half a ton of charging power armor.

Grinning in triumph Wash roughly hauled the dazed woman back to her feet by her… rabbit ears?

* * *

End Note: Actually it does matter as my ego is incredibly fragile and requires constant inflation so please say nice things about me okay?


End file.
